Benjamin Stoddert was born in Maryland in 1751. Trained as a merchant, he joined the Continental Army as a cavalry captain and was severely wounded at the Battle of Brandywine. After the war he prospered in the shipping and tobacco trade in Georgetown.
In 1798, as conflict with France in the undeclared Quasi-War made a navy urgent, President John Adams appointed Stoddert the first Secretary of the Navy. He organized the new Navy Department with great energy, oversaw the construction and outfitting of warships, established navy yards, and laid the administrative foundations of the United States Navy. He left office in 1801 and died in 1813.